Welcome and thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed experimenting with shapes and characters this week. We came up with a few too. Meet PRINCESS PUMPKIN, HUGGING CHEESE CUBES, BIRD plus many more below...

My sketches are all so loose! I've always been a messy sketcher and have forever wanted crystal clear details to come out of my pencil from the start. But, it doesn't happen! It isn't until I start blocking in color when I can really make sense out of shapes and details pop. Does that happen to you?

The past two weeks have been...a whirlwind. As a result, the world of children's literature has started a small movement to help kids feel safe and comforted in the chaos. To help educators and schools relay this message, children's book illustrators have created art - free to download and post in classrooms, libraries, schools etc. Art that makes kids feel hopeful and accepted. To find these images, use the hashtag #hugsfromkidlit.

In that spirit, all of my characters are giving or receiving some kind of hug!

The sketch I decided to color up was my HUGGING BOUNCY TOUCANS. A few changes were made along the way. First, my toucans were springing just past eachother...not quite a hug, more of a head nudge...

...but it was getting a little busy. I decided to shorten my beaks and wings in my final so the focus was on the hands making contact, not the bouncy birds.

I experimented with background too. Since the kids and toucans were tighter lines, I wanted to create more of a sketchy background...

I love yellow and wanted more sunshine, so I used the channel selector in PS to take some of the broccoli green out...

I even played around with the sand shapes under the seats...

This straight line version worked better with the hilly background.

And here's the final! If you would like a higher resolution image to post in your classroom/library, drop me a note: amy@amynielander.com. Thanks for stopping by...and kids: